The Day I Kissed An Older Man

“I’ve told you a thousand times that I’m not a kid anymore!” warned Sunny.
Corinne did not take what he said to heart. She simply said, “I’m going to finish all the steak if you don’t want to eat them.”
“I do want to eat them!” said Sunny arrogantly with a lift of his chin before grabbing some steak off the grill. He did not have
many opportunities to eat barbecue since he did not have the money to.
Lucas feared that Sunny would pick up bad habits if he gave him lots of pocket money, and he would not allow him to eat fast
food either. Thus, Sunny would either eat at the school cafeteria or at home.
It was only when Sunny got together with Xante that he got to eat outside. Frankly, he did feel ashamed that Xante had to pay for
all of their dates. Thus, he vowed to make it up to her once he got a job.
Corinne went up to her room to take a shower after she finished her dinner. Even though they had the air-conditioner on in the
dining room, the heat from the tabletop grill still caused her to sweat a little.
After she came out of the bathroom, she scrolled through her phone with one hand while drying her hair with a towel with the
other. It had been two hours since she wired the money to Jeremy, but he still did not accept it.
Corinne did not want to owe Jeremy, so she texted him to remind him to accept the money. She wanted to block him after he
received the money since there would be no point for them to keep in contact after that.
However, not only did Jeremy not accept the money, but he did not reply to her either.
‘Ah, well. I’ll just remind him again tomorrow if he doesn’t want to accept it today,’ thought Corinne with a frown.
The painting had already been delivered to Corinne’s room. It was resting against the wall, waiting to be put up. Fragmented
memories from when she was little began to rush into her mind as she stared at the painting.
‘I wonder where Mom is and how she’s doing... Why didn’t she come find me if she’s alive?’ thought Corinne. She was only a
few years old when she was separated from Emily, and fast forward to then, she was about to become a mother herself.
Corinne touched her belly, and her expression softened. ‘Soon I’ll be able to meet you, little one.’
Suddenly, her phone rang. She snapped out of her trance and picked up her phone—it was Annie calling.

Corinne was about to answer the call when Annie canceled the call. ‘This is weird... Did something happen to her?’ wondered
Corinne. She called her back but was rejected.
‘Something fishy is definitely going on!’ thought Corinne with a frown. She called her back again but got the same response.
Getting more worried by the second, Corinne texted her, [Hey, are you okay? Did something happen?]
After a minute or so, Annie replied, [Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry, I pressed the wrong number. I’m outside at the moment, so I can’t
talk.]
Corinne was relieved to know Annie was alright, so she did not ask her any more questions. She put down her phone to blow dry
her hair and went to sleep.
She fell asleep quite fast, but she had a not-quite-scary but very tiring dream. She would either be running or looking for
something in her dream, causing her to wake up groggy the next day.
When she went down for breakfast, she could not help but feel like Lucas wanted to tell her something but was stopping himself.
“Mister Lucas, why do you keep looking at me like that? Do you have something to tell me?” she asked with a frown.